Literally means "Chief" in French and has nothing to do with cooking except for the fact that the "Chief of Food" at a restaurant is called the Chef de Cuisine or Chef for short.

Americans do make the mistake of equating a Chef with a Cook, which clearly must piss of any Non-Cooking French Chef...we should therefore keep up the good work.

Also, since a Chef is a "French Chief" and Chief is commonly used as a derisive moniker (a la sport, boss, my friend, jefe, etc), calling someone a Chef can be quite an aggressive insult in certain circles.

Also, a term of the utmost respect depending on context

Chef, nice work picking up that smokin hottie last night. I hope you closed that shit

Chef there is something floating in my water, can I have a clean glass please. On second thought, I don't want this cack'd up tap water, please bring me some bottled, no gas please.

1)Term commonly used to refer to an individual who cooks professionally, especially the chief cook of a large kitchen staff.

2)A character from the popular cartoon television show "South Park" on Comedy Central. As of March 13th, 2006, the voice actor for this character, Issac Heyes, abandoned the show stating religious objections as his reason for leaving.